by Davina Lee
“I have no idea what you just said,” Lina mumbled.
“Not you, I.”
“Right.”
Arabel came over to touch her fingers to Lina’s forehead. “Still warm,” she said.
Lina grumbled and sat up. The three of them sat cross-legged in a cozy circle on the skimmer’s deck.
“I’s been telling me about this island and the other ones in the area. Says that the drones here used to sail great distances to trade.” Arabel placed her hand on Lina’s forearm. “Didn’t your mentor say that she traded baskets for an old drone’s lychee fruit?”
“Mentor…and I love her to pieces…Baby, we have to accept that she was quite likely losing her mind.”
Arabel lowered her gaze directly at Lina. “Did you forget what you saw in her final moments? Did that look like action of someone who had lost her mind? She was a great woman, and I’m sad that I never got to know her.”
Lina draped her arm around Arabel’s neck and pulled her close. The two sat, forehead to forehead for several moments.
“I’m sorry,” said Lina. “Oh, what is wrong with me?”
“I says the next island has a thriving colony, and they have medicines that can help you.” Arabel sat back upright and patted Lina’s thigh. “Two day’s journey.”
“I been there,” I said. “Very beautiful. Land of milk and honey.”
“Um, Arabel,” Lina said, “I know you’re like some kind of great cloud sailor now, but you do realize there has to be sun, or this thing…” Lina made a gesture with her hand that started out flat and then curved downward.
“I says it’s not a problem.”
“Come.” I sprang upright to standing in a flash. “I show you. Make sun in nighttime. Come.”
Lina stood up, wobbled a moment, and then reached out for the skimmer’s roof for balance. “Whoa,” she said.
Arabel and I were staring at Lina’s bare calves below the fabric of the coverall.
“What?” Lina said, tugging at the shoulders of the garment.
Arabel made a gesture with her thumb and finger starting pressed together, and then pulled apart as far as they would go. No words left her gaping mouth.
“Lina grow,” said I.
“Lina needs to pee,” said Lina with a yawn. “Then maybe another nap.”
After some confusion about who should help Lina, she finally dragged herself onto land and into the shrubbery without either of her eager helpers. “I’m not an invalid,” Lina insisted. “Just tired.”
Lina turned her head and promptly vomited.
“And sick,” she said.
Arabel and I helped her back into the skimmer and under the cover. After a good tucking in from Arabel, and an assurance from I that Them would not be back to pester her, Arabel and I left Lina alone to trot off together, past the shrubbery and into the densely wooded forest beyond.
And after grabbing the bucket just in time to purge herself of the remaining lychee, Lina settled down to sleep. It was a fitful sleep, full of lightning strikes, and a slow descent through the clouds, into the depths of the abyss.
Chapter 7: Into the Abyss
It came to pass that the ancestral memories of all queens who had come before, would instill in each colony’s queen a deep yearning to seek out the solace of others like her, and unite the people once again under the sheltering branches of the Great Tree. To this end, the queen’s crafts-workers learned to build ships that would sail upon the clouds. And the bravest among the queen’s people would mount these vessels and set out from the safety of the colony’s island home in hopes of finding her sisters.
—Selected passages from The Book of the Origin by Bella Aurelius Nobilis, Modern Language Translation
* * * *
“My child,” came a voice that was both near and distant, intimate and foreign—in a moment that Lina was both there, then here.
Lina thrashed upon the bedding where she lay, the fever burning her up inside at times, and at others, leaving her chilled to the bone.
“Mentor?” she croaked.
“Not exactly,” came the voice, this time softer and seeming to emanate from within Lina’s own head.
Lina opened her eyes, and promptly squeezed them shut again. The after-image on her retinas showed roiling clouds, the multicolored splendor of lightning strikes illuminating noble gasses—the same scene she had last witnessed while cloud sailing with her mentor—except this time it was all happening above her.
Lina shivered.
“Am I—?”
“Dead?” said the voice echoing her mind. “No. You’re still safely tucked away on board your little craft with your friends. You are sleeping, my child.”
“Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”
“Perhaps the more appropriate question would be, ‘why do you not wish to see me?’”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re very brave to be sailing so far from home in such a tiny craft.” The voice in Lina’s head was soothing now, but at the same time quite sizable, causing her head to ache, as if there wasn’t quite enough space for both of them inside Lina’s skull.
Lina began to feel nauseous.
“Where are—?” Lina stopped short, turned her head, and vomited.
When Lina opened her eyes there was the face of a strange woman smiling down upon her. Lina squeezed her eyes shut and waited. She cautiously opened one eye, just a slit.
The woman was still there, but hazy.
She looked familiar, but yet unlike anyone Lina had ever seen. She was all at once beautiful and completely foreign, repulsive almost. Her skin young and taut one moment, and covered in deep wrinkles the next. The woman’s eyes were like tiny teardrops turned sideways, always bright. Her face round with cheeks high and rosy, her nose impossibly small. It was a wonder she could smell anything at all with a nose like that. And then Lina noticed her most revolting feature yet. The woman had no scent glands.
“Who are—?”
“Where are we? Who am I? Or perhaps you’d like to vomit again,” the woman’s voice echoed as a sing-song melody inside Lina’s head, but with shrill, skull-rattling overtones. “Makes no difference to me. It’s your dream after all. But…once you wake up…”
The strange woman brought her two closed fists up, one on either side of her head, and then suddenly splayed all of her fingers out at once. She made such a wooshing noise to accompany the gesture, that the result was Lina feeling her face being covered in a fair amount of spit.
But when Lina reached up to wipe with the back of her hand, she felt nothing there.
“Who—?”
“Oh, good, you’ve decided. Who am I? Is that what you wish to know?”
Lina nodded.
The strange woman’s face began to change in front of Lina’s eyes. For a long moment she held the face of Mentor, and then Arabel. In quicker succession came the faces of I, and the twirling woman from the rave, a woman covered in tattoos who she had never seen before, and finally the gnarled face of the old queen from Lina’s colony.
“I—I don’t understand,” Lina said.
“Well, of course not, child. You refuse to open your mind. You look right at me every day, but you don’t see me.” The strange round face was back now, the younger version, then the old. “I am all of them, and they are all me. Except for that last one. Not quite sure where I went wrong there. Well, never mind.” The woman waved her hand in the air.
Lina held her hands to her temples and doubled over with her lips pressed in a tight line.
“Sorry, too much,” said the voice. “Perhaps this.”
The old woman was gone. In her place stood the Great Tree. Not the Tree surrounded by the palace walls in Lina’s colony, but something else, something larger both in size and in presence. The branches of the Tree were old and gnarled like the old woman’s face, but its leaves and flowers were as young and vibrant as the sapling that Arabel kept hidden away in her apartment. A half-round orange sun was rising on the
far horizon, casting long shadows of branches over the ground.
“You’re a tree?”
“Not a tree, child, the Tree.”
“Where—?”
“Ah yes, the next question already. You know, most people take a little more time to get their minds wrapped around the ‘not a tree, the Tree’ bit. I think it fell rather flat this time, don’t you?”
Lina grimaced and rubbed her temples.
“Sorry,” said the Tree. “Too much. I’ll slow it down.
“We are in a place once known as Mother Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, just south of a little waterway that in its prime, came to be known as the Zambezi River. And I’m sure you have no comprehension of any of that, do you?”
“The air is so clean and clear. How can it be, so far into the abyss?”
“This is the way it was when my human children first came to be. See us right over there? On that plain? I’m the big tree, obviously. Hello. And all around me are my human children. See how they love me?”
Lina squinted and looked at the figures surrounding the Great Tree. They were very different than Lina, even different from the old woman she first saw in this strange fever dream. They were dancing and singing.
“This is where my people came from?” Lina asked.
“Yes. And no.” The image of the lone Great Tree on the wide, flat plain disappeared into the mist, and the young woman’s face who first greeted Lina appeared in its place. “Your most direct ancestor is the one they call the Wise Queen of the East. Come. I will take you to her land.”
The winds around Lina rushed and howled. Clouds closed in from above where before there was only clear, blue sky. Multiple forked tongues of lightening split the air, and when the thunder clapped, it was a deafening roar. Lina held her hands over her ears, leaned forward and rocked back and forth.
“Sorry, too much,” is what Lina thought she heard the Great Tree saying just before Lina hung her head, squeezed her eyes tight, and vomited.
* * * *
“My child.” The young woman smiled and Lina felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “We are here. The land of the Great and Wise Queen of the East.”
Lina blinked her eyes. Above her was the young woman’s cheerful face, beyond that was a roiling cloud of thunder.
“How can that be?” Lina asked. “Why is the storm still here?”
“This is the land of your ancestors. The cities below the clouds, in the abyss. The storm was not always here. It only came after the tribes of your ancestors began to refuse the gifts I gave them, wanting instead that which they created by their own hand.”
Lina coughed, choking on the thick air. “Why didn’t you stop them, warn them?”
“I am a Great Tree, my child, but not so great that I can bend the will of humankind.” The voice was coming from the old, wrinkled visage now. “I can teach you the map of the stars, I can give you the clouds on which to sail, but I cannot steer your skimmer, Lina. You of all people should know that.”
“Because I look at you, but do not see you? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Now you are beginning to understand.” The woman speaking to Lina had transformed into the gaily-painted twirling woman from the rave. The fact that here in Lina’s dream she was still twirling was not helping Lina’s constitution at all.
Lina turned away and vomited.
“My Queen,” said the twirling woman, who for the moment had stopped twirling and dropped to her knees to press her hand to Lina’s forehead. “Are you alright?”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
All at once, the twirling woman stood up. She began twirling again. Blood was spattered on her cheek, but it was not her blood.
“Stop.” Lina demanded.
The twirling woman disappeared and Lina’s mentor took her place. She was wearing a gray tunic and her head was misshapen, crushed on one side.
“No!” Lina cried. “Please!”
The wrinkled old woman’s face was back. There was a strained look in the corners of her mouth and a tear rolling down one cheek. “I am sorry, my child. I am getting fatigued, losing focus. I will try to hold this face for you.”
“Thank you.”
The old woman was on her knees now, kneeling beside Lina and holding a bowl of steaming vegetable broth. “Are you ready?” the old woman asked.
“For soup? How exactly does that work in a dream?”
“The soup is symbolic, my child.” The old woman was helping Lina into a sitting position. “It is knowledge you seek. Drink, and you shall have it.”
Lina sat up and drank.
* * * *
“Lina? Honey?” Arabel’s voice sounded distance, tiny.
Lina cautiously opened her eyes, first one, then the other. Gone was the woman, the Great Tree, the roiling clouds. In their place was Arabel’s face, framed in moonlight. Lina reached out and touched her cheek. “Arabel,” she whispered. “I think we’re dead.”
Arabel grinned. “And why is that?”
“We’re on a cloud skimmer and it’s nighttime. How is that even possible? And, I just had a long and rather interesting conversation with the Great Tree.”
“Is that so?” Arabel asked. “You okay to sit up?”
Lina nodded.
“Come and look at this,” Arabel said, and helped Lina move out from under the shelter of the cloud skimmer’s cover and into the cool night air.
“So many stars,” Lina said.
“Yeah,” Arabel said, lacing her fingers in with Lina’s. “Beautiful isn’t it?”
“Mmm.” Lina rested her head on Arabel’s shoulder. The fact that it was a farther down than it used to be was not lost on her. She felt the cuffs of her coverall just below her knees, and the inseam was beginning to feel uncomfortably tight. She shifted a bit to relieve the pressure.
Lina pointed up into the sky. “Do you see that star? The one over there?”
Arabel nodded.
“That star is the Guide Star, it will remain fixed in the same place throughout the entire night sky. The Ancients used it to navigate by.”
Arabel looked up at Lina, her lips parted, but no words coming out at the moment. Finally, she said, “That’s what the Book of Origin calls it. But—but you refused to read it. So how—?”
“How do I know that?” Lina looked around. “And why are we not dead?”
I turned and smiled. “Look. Look. Make sun in the nighttime. See?”
I pointed to a curved slot sitting over the cloud skimmer’s roof and heat exchanger, that was glowing a deep orange inside. I picked up a brown-colored brick that appeared to be frayed around the edges as it caught the flickering glow and handed it to Lina.
“Smells interesting,” she said. “Earthy.”
Lina gave the brick back to I, who proceeded to push it into the slot toward the red-orange glow.
“From what I’ve gathered,” Arabel said, “This thing is like an oven that I’s people use—”
“Of course!” Lina blurted out. “It’s ceramic, like cookware, but you light the fire on top of it, not under. It evens out the heat and protects the top of the skimmer’s heat exchanger. And it’s built with a top that prevents too much heat from escaping into the surrounding air. Those bricks are from ancient peat bogs. Prevalent in I’s homeland.”
Lina paused and took a deep breath. “How do I know all this?” She mumbled aloud.
“I’s father use this to sail great distance. Show I how it works.”
Lina saw the flash of I’s proud smile in the glow of the cloud skimmer furnace. She reached out for I’s hand and squeezed. “This is amazing. You’re amazing.” She reached for Arabel’s hand, too. “Both of you.”
Lina shuddered and pressed her palms to her temples, as a sharp pain suddenly gripped her, and then departed almost as quickly as it came.
“You alright?” Arabel said.
“Lina hungry?” said I, “Lina want fruit?”
“Thank you, I,” Lina s
aid, nodding.
“So, do you want to know where we’re going?” Arabel asked. “Or do you know already?”
“Is it someplace warm, with blankets?”
“According to I, it’s a very well-established colony, with a very wise and beautiful queen, and every meal—”
“Every meal is milk and honey!” exclaimed I.
Lina smiled. “Milk and honey. Sounds like a nice change. I can’t imagine us eating—”
Lina started to shiver again, just a little at first, but very quickly it became a violent shuddering. Lina raised her hands to her temples and groaned.
“Lina?” said Arabel. “Lina, let’s get you tucked in down below.”
“Don’t know what’s wrong,” Lina said. “F-Feeling fine just…ohh. Bucket! Quick!”
Lina vomited, narrowly making it into the bucket that Arabel held out for her. In her head, Lina heard the echo of a sing-song voice that seemed to come from a great distance. “Sorry, too much,” was all it said.
Lina fell limp. She felt her body being carefully tucked amid the bedding by Arabel, and then closed her eyes.
Chapter 8: The Land of Milk and Honey
And those brave souls, those sailors of ships on the clouds, were met with open arms and glad tidings at each port of call. For any people of the Great Tree are all of the same family. And it is the wisest of queens who will see to it that the stranger is always given a place of honor at her table.
—Selected passages from The Book of the Origin by Bella Aurelius Nobilis, Modern Language Translation
* * * *
Lina heard the sound of the skimmer scraping on rock. It echoed all around her as she lay, tucked in under the skimmer’s roof, sweating and freezing at the same time. Struggling with the urge to vomit.
The noise stopped. Lina opened one eye.
“Shh,” said Arabel. She held up the bota bag for Lina to see and then brought the end to her lips.
“Where?” Lina croaked.
“Safe,” said Arabel.
“I go get medicines, now,” said I.
Lina felt the skimmer wobble, and heard the slap of feet on rock, as I bounded over the side plank and went running off.
“We made it?” Lina croaked.